Naruto's life
by BlueGlass54
Summary: AU The title says it all. This story will follow Uzumaki Naruto from his birth to his death. Note that my Naruto will differ greatly from the real Naruto because, to put it simply, Kushina is the Kyuubi.
1. birth

**chapter 1**

**birth**

It was the late evening in Konohagakure no Sato. The cool, early autumn air surrounded the shinobi village, lulling its many inhabitants towards the peaceful slumber they expected to have in a few hours. Well, not _all_ its inhabitants.

Konoha hospital, for one, was still as busy as ever, especially in operating room 9, from which the cries of a newborn baby could be heard echoing into the hallway. Inside the room, the wailing infant was wriggling in the arms of the medic nin who held him, blue eyes scrunched up, and little arms and legs waving about wildly.

The tiny boy's parents both had their full attention focused on the little bundle of joy newly brought into the world, as the medic nin quickly wrapped him up in a previously prepared blanket. She then passed him into the arms of his blonde-haired father and turned to the woman lying on the bed.

"How are you feeling, Kushina-sama?" she asked. The redhead, however, was completely out of it, with eyes for nothing but her son, and did not even hear the question. Fortunate, as it prevented a scolding for forgetting that the Hokage's wife loathed being referred to as -sama.

The brown-haired medic couldn't help but stare in slight awe at the last (make that second-to-last, now) of the Uzumaki clan. She had just gone through her first childbirth without any signs of pain besides a tensing of her jaw and terseness of speech. Even for a skilled kunoichi, that was a remarkable feat, as the medic herself could attest to, being the mother of two children herself.

Seeing that both her patients were perfectly healthy and no one in the room was paying her any attention, the medic left so they could have their family moment in privacy.

Minato was staring into his son's eyes, identical in color to his own, "You're a cute little Naruto, yes you are! You're so cute, with that cute little bit of blonde hair on the top of your cute little head, and those cute little whisker-marks on your cute little cheeks!"

Seeing the most powerful ninja in the world making baby faces and speaking doting-parent-eese brought a laugh from his wife, who was now sitting up in her bed. "Mina-kun, you look like an idiot. Give him here."

He immediately did as ordered, knowing by the glint in her bright green eyes that anything other than total compliance would earn him a savage verbal beating in the near future.

The red-haired kunoichi just sat there looking at the infant, who had ceased his crying and was staring at everything around him in wonderment. "You're so adorable, little Naru-chan. I could just sit here like this forever."

Konoha's Yellow Flash moved to stare at the baby as well. "Who's going to grow up to be an awesome ninja, just like his mommy and daddy, huh? Who is? Not little Naru-chan here."

"Minato, you're making faces again." At his wife's admonishment, the Hokage's hand reflexively went up to scratch the back of his neck.

"Oops! Sorry, Kushina-chan."

Naruto giggled.

On hearing the sound, the new parents instantly focused all their attention on their child. The next several minutes were pure bliss; the three of them together, the older two blocking out everything but the infant as they watched his every move and listened to his every sound and ingrained his scent permanently into their minds.

As ninja, they should have known better.

"For the Master!" The shout immediately drew their attention to its source, namely, four white-clad (they were in a hospital, after all) shinobi whose only distinguishing feature was the seven-pointed star on their forehead protectors, a symbol that, frighteningly enough considering just who they were, neither Minato nor Kushina recognized. Each of the mysterious attackers was in the process of throwing a kunai. The two Kage-level ninja took half a nanosecond to process all of this and another half-nanosecond to calculate the trajectory of the four kunai and their intended target. Naruto.

For the first time in all their years of knowing each other, Kushina reacted slightly faster than her husband. She thrust her son into his father's arms, instinctively, taking care to preform the motion gently so as not to damage the infant, and threw herself at the men in a tremendous burst of chakra.

The Hokage immediately knew something was wrong. No wait, that was a ridiculous though; four unknown ninja had just attempted to murder his newborn son, _of course_ something was wrong. But something was wrong with Kushina. Normally, she would have just slit the attackers' throats or broken their necks or something, but she had... she had...

As he looked at his wife, standing amidst the pieces of four freshly-dead shinobi, coated in blood, his mind immediately jumped back to what she had told him so long ago when they had first started dating about her clan and what made the Uzumakis... different.

From there, as she turned to face him and the child, and her eyes started to shift back and forth between green and red, his memory moved on to a much more recent conversation, during the latter stages of her pregnancy, where she had warned him about her clan's protection instincts with regards to their newborn. Anything that could possibly be viewed as a threat to the infant would be utterly destroyed. In the few recorded instances of attacks in the immediate vicinity of an Uzumaki female who had just given birth, the end result was always the same: mother and child completely alone amidst several miles of devastation.

Being ninja, they had come up with a plan for this kind of situation, but neither had really expected to need it.

The details of the plan they had developed came unbidden to the blonde's mind. No. Nonono. Nonononononononono. This wasn't happening. This _couldn't be happening!_ There was _no way_ he was going to condemn his wife and son to that.

"M-Minato!" His wife's strangled cry brought him back to reality. As the Hokage watched his wife fight to hold off the instinctive call in her blood to start killing, even as the first tail ripped from her back, and her nails became more claw-like, he remembered. She had come up with the plan in the first place, to protect Konoha. She was ready to accept the consequences for herself, and besides, it's not like Naruto would be completely alone.

As he laid his child down on the bed where his wife had been moments before, the second tail came forth, and the red chakra began to fill the room. "Hurry!"

In the instant it took to reach Kushina, the world-renowned ninja looked at the situation logically. Leave his son fatherless and hated, without ever being able to have physical contact with his mother, or let 42,120 of _his_ people die so that his wife could live, likely hating herself forever, and still leaving his son with only one parent. The answer was obvious.

As he wrapped his arms around Kushina and dropped a single three-pronged kunai to the floor, the third tail sprouted, then a flash of yellow light later, and the two were several hundred miles away.

* * *

Halfway across Fire Country from Konoha's location, in a pre-selected spot with nothing but miles upon miles of forests between it and the ninja village, two people appeared in a flash of yellow light. A second later, Minato was flung twenty feet away when a powerful wave of chakra erupted from his wife as the fourth tail appeared. Simultaneously, fur began to grow all over her body, the same red color as her hair, her teeth became sharp and pointed, and her face began to twist and change, nose elongating and eyes shifting back.

"**What are you still doing here? Get back to Naruto!"** she shouted at the Hokage.

The reality of the whole situation was finally sinking in on the blonde, and tears began to flow from his eyes. "Kushina-chan, I love you."

"**I love you too. Now go! I can't hold myself back much longer!"** Indeed it was true. Even as they had been speaking, the fifth and sixth tails had emerged, and Kushina had fully changed into her demon fox form, growing in size rapidly as her clothes ripped to pieces.

Her husband vanished in a flash of yellow just as she let off another, much more powerful chakra wave, tearing up the ground around her.

* * *

Two hiraishins later and Minato was in his office with his son held safely in his arms once more. He continued to cry as he hit the emergency alarm button beneath his desk, setting off sirens around the village. These particular sirens were the ones that signaled all genin to supervise evacuation of the village, while all other ninja congregated in front of the Hokage tower.

The Yondaime quickly made a kage bunshin, who headed to the roof, while the original began preparations for what was to come. Looking off to the west, there was a dull red glow on the horizon that was definitely not the sun, as that had set long ago. Thirty seconds later, the chakra wave hit, and Minato prayed it would not cause panic and chaos. Those were two things he didn't need right now.

Another thing he didn't need was a wailing Naruto, but he got it anyway.

* * *

The kage bunshin of the Hokage looked out on the assembled ninja forces of the village, prepared to address his people for the last time. "Everyone, listen up! That chakra wave you all felt moments ago was the Kyuubi no Kitsune. It is currently heading full speed towards Konoha, prepared to destroy our village.

"Now, I have a plan to stop it, but I'll need some time, about a half hour. Unfortunately, it will be on us in under ten minutes, so we'll have to stall. I want all ANBU divisions to begin feeding their chakra into the barrier seals on the western quadrant of the village immediately. Concentrate the energy around seals 152 through 177. That should be enough to stop its momentum so that it doesn't just plow straight through us. Go."

About a fifth of the crowd leapt away, as he continued speaking to the remainder. "As for the rest of you, I want you all prepared to start throwing out jutsu like there's no tomorrow the moment it hits that barrier. The fox is a fire elemental being, so concentrate on suiton and avoid katon and fuuton. And remember that you need to hold it back for a while, so bring soldier pills and pace yourselves on chakra consumption.

"Do not attempt to kill the fox, just stall it. There will be enough people dying tonight without any foolish acts of misplaced heroism. I'm putting Danzo in charge of the battle until my arrival, and I need to see Sarutobi in my office immediately. Dismissed!" In a blur of motion, all present vanished to prepare.

* * *

The legendary Professor opened the door to what had once been his office to see his successor busily coating the room, a crying baby, and himself in seals. "Your students sure picked a great time to be out of the village, Sarutobi-sama."

The retired Hokage took one look at the infant on the floor, taking in all his features, most notably the eyes and whisker-like marks on his cheeks, in addition to the small, barely-noticeable tuft of blonde hair. "Yours?" he asked, even though the answer is obvious. At the nod, he continued. "What happened?"

Minato continued drawing as he spoke. "Not five minutes after he was born, four ninja attempted an assassination on him. It set off Kushina-chan's demon side in an instant. We were both focused completely on Naruto, so we didn't even know they were there till they shouted." The older man's facial expression asked his question far better and faster than words could have. "Yeah, I know, it's like they _wanted_ to get themselves killed. The insignia on their forehead protectors was odd, too. A seven-pointed star.

"Anyway, they screamed "For the Master" and threw some kunai, then Kushina tore them apart. We came up with a plan, just in case something like that happened, but I never... but I never expected..." He held back his tears at the last moment. The salt water would ruin the ink.

Sarutobi looked around the room again, and at the two blondes. "What is all this?"

"I'm going to use Shiki Fujin to seal her. This stuff is to transfer her mind and soul from me into Naruto, and it'll all vanish when its purpose is done. He's the only thing around that would be able to contain the power of a nine-tailed demon, and once she's in her right mind again, at least he'll have a mother. I'm going to need you to take this hat back after tonight's done, sorry."

The old man looked on solemnly. "I don't mind. Besides, I quite enjoy the paperwork." The Yondaime froze for a full second on hearing that as his brain tried to process his predecessor's statement, failed, tried again, gave up, and erased it from his memory. "For what it's worth, you were an excellent Hokage, a great man, a wonderful husband, and an amazing father."

"Thanks, Sarutobi. One last thing. Give Naruto his mother's last name. He doesn't ned any more assassination attempts. I hope they'll see him asa hero." His face, however, showed that this final statement held no real hope at all. He knew what kind of life he was condemning his son to; it was why he had resisted following through on the plan. The two men stayed silent for the remainder of their time together. There wasn't really anything more to say.

* * *

The blonde Hokage stood atop Gamabunta, staring fearlessly into the eyes of the Kyuubi, tears overflowing from his wide-open eyes. The small bundle at his feet was the only thing preventing her from eating him as he performed the necessary handseals.

"**Fuuinjutsu: Shiki Fujin!"**

"I love you, Kushina-chan, Naruto. Grow strong, my son, and listen to your mother," he whispered, as a bright light enveloped them, forcing all the ninja present to turn away or go blind. When the light receded, the demon fox was gone, and Minato had fallen onto his back. Naruto was crying.

"Shh... shh... Mommy's here. Nothing is going to hurt you. Everything will be all right. Shh..." Though he could not understand the words, the soothing, loving tone of voice was enough to settle the infant's wails. And combined with the feel of the wrinkly skin of the old man who picked him up, it was soon enough to lull the newborn to sleep.


	2. first years

**chapter 2**

**first years  
**

For the first couple of days, Kushina was on a mental and emotional high. Being so intimately connected with her newborn son, feeling his every sensation and emotion, put her in a state of bliss unlike anything she had ever experienced.

The seal her husband had designed was not one of imprisonment, at least not entirely. She was restrained, yes, locked away inside her baby, unable to have any sort of direct influence on the physical world, but that had ben necessary to halt her rampage. The main purpose of the seal, however, was to bind mother and child together.

Naruto and Kushina were completely intertwined in mind and even in their very souls. Everything he experienced, so did his mother, and every thought and emotion she had was also felt by the blonde. The seal was designed so that as he grew the interconnectedness of the two would lessen, allowing him to develop on his own, but for now it was like they were one person.

Feeling the constant outflow of ecstasy from his mother, Naruto couldn't help but feel happy himself and was laughing almost constantly. That is, as long as he wasn't sleeping or eating. The latter was one of Kushina's few regrets during this time. Not being able to breastfeed her own child and, what's more, having to experience another woman doing it in her place was quite upsetting.

The mind of a newborn baby was also quite an interesting thing from the view of a developed person. Having no language at this point in life, Naruto's thoughts came solely in the form of feelings and sensations. At the same time, though, he was picking up her thoughts, but his young mind was not able to fully understand them.

After those first few days passed, however, reality began to set in on the redhead's mind. Minato was gone, dead, his soul trapped for eternity in the stomach of the Shinigami. And she had slaughtered many of the village's ninja, people she had seen as friends, some with families of their own. Some nights, after Naruto fell asleep, she would find herself crying. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. She should have had her husband with her.

It was nearly two weeks after that fateful night that the village was recovered enough to hold a meeting of the higher-ups to decide what to do with Naruto. Present at the meeting were Sarutobi Hiruzen, Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, Uchiha Fugaku, Hyuuga Hiashi, and Danzo. Not to mention baby Naruto himself.

Some of the suggestions made by the the ANBU ROOT leader made Kushina wish she had done more damage than just biting off his arm and leaving the left half of his body burned to the point of uselessness. Fortunately, however, the Sandaime gave one of his deeply moving speeches to sway the rest of the assembled ninja to uphold Minato's decision: Naruto would live a normal life, and no one would be allowed to speak of the truth of the Kyuubi's defeat (Kushina's demon heritage being a secret known only to herself and the Hokage) under punishment of death. Of course, the news had, by this time, already filtered out to every single person in the village, so they could only hope for the best.

* * *

Young Naruto seemed to be in a hurry to grow up, rushing through the early stages of life at a speed that shocked the nurses at his orphanage. By the time he was six months old, the blonde baby was already crawling about, and his first word (kaa-san) came only a month later. About a year after his birth, he began walking and speaking intelligible sentences. Around this same time, his thoughts became more organized, and he would often have mental conversations with his mother, usually asking her to sing to him or tell him a story.

When Naruto was two, his mental development was on par with most five-year-olds. He regularly held long conversations with anyone available. Usually, this was limited to his mother, as the older children avoided him, and the adults disliked him. One thing that the blonde constantly wanted to know more about was his father, and it was through this desire, combined with Kushina's storied, that he grew obsessed with becoming a ninja.

Part of the redhead had hoped her son would come to another career choice; ninja life was dangerous, and what sort of mother would want to put her child in danger's path? At the same time, however, another part of her knew that it was inevitable, what with where he lived combined with the massive amount of potential inside him and his love of challenges. Naruto not becoming a ninja would be like her turning down ramen. Or the blonde himself doing so, as he seemed to have inherited his mother's love for the blissful noodles and soup of the gods.

And so it was that Naruto would start sneaking out of the orphanage day and night to train under his mother's supervision. She taught the young blonde how to wield a kunai, and throw a shuriken, and mold chakra all before he turned three.

Then his third birthday came around.

* * *

"_Kaa-san, look at all those pretty lights! Did Jiji set this up for my birthday, or is it just a coincidence? Can I go check it out?"_ No matter how much older than his age he acted, Naruto was still only a child and responded to colorful flashing lights in the way only a hyperactive three-year-old could.

Somewhere deep within her gut, Kushina's motherly instincts were acting up, telling her something bad would happen, but the delight she could feel from her son and the disappointment she knew refusal would cause resulted in her ignoring them. _"Sure, go ahead, Naru-chan."_

"Yipee!" he shouted out loud, before dashing off to the festival at much higher speeds than one would expect from such a small child.

For the first half-hour or so, Naruto simply wandered around taking in the sights of happy, celebrating people, staying unnoticed thanks to his small size. His mother, however, was starting to worry and seriously considered ordering the blonde back to the orphanage on seeing a group of villagers burning a Kyuubi effigy.

"_Kaa-san? What's wrong?"_ the little boy asked on feeling his mother's worry.

"_Oh, it's nothing for you to concern yourself with,"_ she answered, while blocking off her emotions from her son's mind to let him better enjoy himself. _"It's your birthday, go have fun"_ She had not yet told him about what had happened that day three years ago.

Searching around some more, Naruto found the game booths. Lots of kids around his age, all with their parents or other responsible adults, of course, were lined up waiting their turns to win prizes. How could he resist? Taking out his nearly-overflowing frog wallet (he had been saving up his allowance to buy chakra-enhanceable training weights), he slipped unseen into the back of one of the lines.

Fortunately, the line he had chosen moved quickly, and the blonde child was at the booth in under a minute. "Excuse me, can I play?"

"Sure thing, little boy," the man running the stall said amicably. "It'll be fifteen ye-" Then he got a good look at his customer, and his entire attitude changed in an instant. "Oh, it's _you_! Get out of here,

you little monster, before I have you arrested! _Things_ like you don't deserve to breathe the same air as the good people of this village!"

Now everyone was looking at him. The air was filled with angry whispers, and everywhere he looked, there were glaring adults looking right back while ushering their children behind them, as though to keep them away from something nasty. The people closest to Naruto had swiftly backed away, leaving him alone in the middle of a large open space.

Anger and hate, two emotions the blonde was already quite familiar with despite being so young, were emanating strongly from every single person present, all directed at him. It was too much.

Tears blurring his vision, he ran off, the crowd parting to let him through. Ten minutes later, he was still running, paying no attention to where he was headed, his mind still full of the hate-filled eyes. He was still too distraught for even Kushina's constant attempts at calming him to have any effect. By this point, he was blindly shoving his way through the crowds that had no idea he was there.

Eventually, there started to be less and less people, to the point where the blonde was now running down streets unimpeded. That is, until he crashed straight into someone's legs and fell down on his back on the sidewalk.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here." When Naruto looked up into the speaker's face, his sensitive nose was immediately overpowered by the smell of alcohol. The man, judging by his attire and forehead protector, was a chunin, who had obviously been out drinking with his friends.

Kushina's danger sense immediately shot through the roof. _"Naruto, RUN!"_ Before he could take even three steps, though, the small boy found himself dangling upside down, held in midair by a painfully tight grip around his ankle.

From his current position, he could see the faces of the drunk chunin and his two fellows, all of whom were wearing cruel expressions. "You know what, I think we should make the little monster feel a taste of the pain we felt three years ago," suggested the female of the group.

The third member of the bunch took out a kunai. "Good idea. A little payback sounds like just the thing."

Naruto's world exploded in pain. It overrode all his senses to the point where he couldn't even think straight anymore. Distantly, he could hear his mother trying to say something, but the pain was too great, and he couldn't understand her. The horrible burning sensation throughout his body continued on for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only about thirty seconds.

When the boy regained use of his senses, he realized he was now embedded into a wall with a kunai in his gut. His left arm felt like it was broken, and there was a large gash running all the way down his right leg. He wanted to pass out. But his attackers weren't done.

"How's that feel?! Painful, right?! Well that's not even a tenth of what you deserve for taking ou sensei away, monster!" The speaker was the one he had first run into, and he was currently forming handseals, slowly, extending the boy's suffering before he finished him off.

Inside her son's mind, Kushina recognized the jutsu the chunin was about to use. For the first time in three years, she wished the seal would allow her some kind of control, but that simply wasn't possible. From the moment the beating had started, the only thing keeping her demonic side in check was the thought that Naruto needed her and now they were beginning to take over. _"Na__**ru**__to, mol__**d up**__ as m__**uch**__ chak__**ra as**__ you __**can. NOW!"**_

The blonde's body instinctively obeyed the order, while his mind was worried about what might be happening to his kaa-san. She had never been like that before, ever. But in his current state, he couldn't even concentrate enough to ask her if she was all right.

"**Katon: Guokakyu no Jutsu"**

The pain this time made what he had felt earlier seem like little more than a paper cut. There was no way to describe it, it was so ntense. Death would be a relief compared to this constant, burning pain. Fortunately, the moment the flames stopped, he sank into blissful unconsciousness. Because of this, he never saw a moment later when the Sandaime arrived, killed the chunin by embedding a kunai into each of their brains, picked up his broken body, and sped off towards the hospital.


	3. learning

**chapter 3**

**learning**

A white ceiling and the smell of chemically-induced cleanliness were the first things to register in Naruto's brain. He immediately decided that he strongly disliked both. "_Kaa-san?"_ he thought.

"_Good, you're awake. You shouldn't try to move right now; your body is still healing."_ The blonde, who had been about to sit up, relaxed and followed his mother's advice.

"_Kaa-san, what happened?"_ Kushina knew that her son was really asking _why_ it had happened. The memory of just what had happened was already permanently imprinted in his brain. The woman sighed deeply, then launched into a story she hadn't planned on telling the boy for several more years.

* * *

"_So you're..."_

"_Two-thirds demon"_

"_And that would make me... one-third demon?"_

"_Exactly."_

"_Kaa-san, why didn't you tell me any of this before?"_

"_I... I wanted to wait until you were a bit older, to be sure you were ready mentally."_

"_... ...What happens if I go on a rampage, like you did?"_

"_That's not something you'll need to worry about, Naru-chan. The human part of you is strong enough to keep the demonic urges in check no matter what the situation."_

"_And Tou-san..."_

"_Your Tou-san did what he had to do. Don't be angry with him for it."_

"_I'm not. I could never be angry with Tou-san. The only one I'm angry with is that 'Master' bastard who caused all this in the first place!"_

Kushina smiled on hearing his exclamation, mostly because it was the first expression of emotion she had felt from her son since the conversation had started. Unlike most mothers, she didn't mind the three-year-old's choice of words at all. After all, she had been the one to teach him that particular term, along with bitch, ass, damn, shit, hell, fuck... No child of hers was going to grow up with a limited vocabulary.

At this point, the redhead picked up on, through Naruto's extra-sensitive hearing, a familiar pattern of footsteps approaching their hospital room. _"We can talk more about this later. Jiji's coming."_

No sooner did she finish this thought than the old man came through the door. Seeing his grandfather figure would always bring a smile to the blonde's face, and this time was no exception. "Jji!" Fortunately, his body was recovered enough that it didn't protest too strongly when he leapt across the room and wrapped his arms around the Hokage's neck. The old man smiled back at the boy while wrapping his arms around the small body.

"Well, you certainly seem to be recovering nicely, Naruto." Hearing this, the happy expression slipped into a serious one, which actually looked quite adorable on the three-year-old's face.

"Jiji, Kaa-san told me what happened to her and Tou-san." Sarutobi Hiruzen took a moment to process the blunt statement and all its various implications.

"And? What do you want to do now that you know all of that?"

The wide, happy grin on the blonde's face made his whole face light up. "I'm gonna become the best ninja ever and take that hat off your head, old man!" With that exclamation, he actually did attempt to grab the ceremonial Hokage hat. Its wearer simply extended his arms, putting the desired object out of reach of the wriggling child's short arms.

* * *

Several weeks later, Naruto was in the forest near the orphanage, in the middle of his late-night training, when he paused. _"Kaa-san, I've been thinking..."_

His mother couldn't help but tease him a little _"Well, it certainly took you long enough."_

"_Kaa-san! I'm trying to be serious here."_ The blonde pouted, knowing that although she obviously couldn't see the expression, she felt every physical sensation he did, and thus knew what he was doing anyway. _"What will it mean for me? Being part demon?"_

"_Well, as you've probably noticed, you're a lot stronger and tougher than ordinary kids your age, even without the early start you have on ninja training. On top of that, your senses are all about ten times better than an ordinary human's, and you recover from injuries at what would normally be impossible speeds. Basically everything about your body is superior in some way or another._

"_Then there's your chakra, which is not only _much_ larger than average but also much more potent. Finally, with enough training, you'll eventually to tap into your demonic power directly, but I'll tell you more about that when you're older"_

The blonde wasn't able to fully understand everything his mother said, but he got the gist of it. _"So, in other words, I can be a super-awesome ninja?"_ She gave the mental equivalent of a nod. _"All right!"_ And the boy threw himself into his training with renewed vigor.

It was several days after this conversation that Naruto brought up something else. Namely, the attack the night of his birthday, and how, after the very first blow had connected, he had been too blinded by pain to even think. That was unacceptable to the blonde, and so, with constant protesting from his mother, he began working on improving his pain tolerance.

This new dimension of his training consisted of purposely causing himself pain in an attempt to acclimate himself to the feeling so that, during a fight, he would be able to take attacks and keep going. For obvious reasons, Kushina strongly objected to the idea but, after her son explained his thinking, she grudgingly admitted that it would be extremely useful in the future.

* * *

For the most part, Uzumaki Naruto's third year of life was fairly dull and uneventful. Well except for being thrown out of the orphanage. The caretakers finally discovered his late-night expeditions outdoors and accused him of not wanting the home they provided. It was all the excuse necessary for the blonde to be thrown out.

Fortunately, he (of course) still had his mother, and with her advice, and the help of the Hokage, he managed to find a run-down apartment after only two days of living in the forest. Living conditions for the small boy actually _improved _in this new location, as he was no longer forced to eat the sludge he had always been served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Instead, he would eat at Ichiraku Ramen.

Freedom from the orphanage also gave Naruto and Kushina much more time to work on his ninja skills, and work they did. The blonde child was growing at a rate well beyond his mother's expectations, and when he turned four, she told him to go see Hokage-jiji about entering the Ninja Academy.

By law, four years of age was the minimum requirement for entrance, but even most of the prominent clans would wait until their children were at least five. As such, the aged leader was quite surprised but promised the blonde enrollment at the start of the next semester, provided he could pass the entry test.

Now, Kushina had grown up in Uzugakure, and as such had no idea what the entry test for Konoha's Ninja Academy might consist of, so she upped her son's training for the remaining two months to the point where the boy would even complain occasionally.

She really hadn't needed to bother, as Naruto did so well on the test that he was placed straight into the graduating class (the Hokage had made sure the examiner was unbiased). While any normal four-year-old would have been intimidated to be in the same class as a group of twelve-year olds, the blonde ninja-in-training was anything but normal.

At first, the youngest student in the Academy was not well-liked by his classmates. After all, they all knew of the Kyuubi inside of him and had lived through its attack just four years previously. However, constant exposure to the energetic, happy blonde showed them that he was Uzumaki Naruto and not the kitsune.

While there was no outright hatred directed at him, as Naruto was the kind of person it was impossible to hate once you got to know him, there was still a good deal of resentment from the rest of the class. Then again, that was probably because twelve-year-olds just don't like getting beaten up by a kid a third their age who comes up to their elbows.

Not to say that the blonde had no friends. As a matter of fact, two of his classmates became very close to him. It probably helped that all three had skipped years at the Academy. Inuzuka Hana, future heir to the Inuzuka clan, was ten years old and considered to be somewhat of a prodigy, having taken on three canine partners as opposed to the usual one. Also ten years old was the son of the head of Konoha's medical department. Yakushi Kabuto had been personally trained by his father from an early age, having shown a high aptitude for medical skills. He, like Naruto, was just starting in the Academy.

The two boys constantly fought over the Rookie of the Year title, with Hana always nipping at their heels. It was, however, more of a friendly rivalry than anything else, and all three got along splendidly with one another. They could often be found training together after classes let out for the day, and it didn't take long for whispers to start spreading about the "prodigy trio."

The Inuzuka heiress, as it turned out, also loved pranks nearly as much as Naruto and his mother did and would sometimes join the blonde in getting revenge on people who had been especially mean to him. Their greatest prank happened the day before the genin exam, when the people of Konoha woke up to find their village bathed in orange, and not from the sunrise. Every solid surface inside the village walls, including inside buildings and the bottoms of the lakes in the training grounds had been coated in orange paint overnight. Even ANBU headquarters was not spared being covered in eye-blistering orange. No one ever figured out just how the two (secretly three) pranksters had pulled it off, but everyone knew who had done it. Naruto and Hana took full credit for their work, standing proudly atop the Hokage monument, identical prankster grins on their faces.

When questioned by the Hokage, they admitted that the paint was chakra-based and non-removable but would fade away in a few days. Naruto later told his surrogate grandfather in secret that his mother had taught him a paint-creating jutsu (which explained how they had managed to get their hands on several hundred thousand gallons of orange paint), and she had also aided him in getting into ANBU HQ. He was not yet close enough to Hana and Kabuto to reveal to them about his mother.

* * *

The genin exams had just finished, and now the Academy graduates were all sitting anxiously in their temporarily-orange seats waiting for Matsumoto-sensei to announce the Rookie of the Year.

"Well, class, it seems we have a perfect tie, something that has never happened before in the history of Konoha. The rules state that in the event of a tie, the top students are to have a match, with the only restriction being no killing, and the winner is granted the title of Rookie of the Year. As such, would Yakushi Kabuto and Uzumaki Naruto please head over to the Academy arena, and anyone who wishes to watch may come as well." It took even less time for the room to empty than was normal at the end of classes, something the chunin instructor had previously considered impossible. "Now if only some of these kids could be that motivated in their training..." he muttered under his breath, before dashing out of the room to catch up to his students, err, former students.

* * *

The arena was similar in structure to the one used for the Chunin Exams, but on a _much _smaller scale. Naruto stood ready across from his opponent, gazing confidently up into his silver-haired friend's eyes. Normally, he wouldn't be quite so sure of himself, as he and Kabuto were, as their grades showed, pretty evenly matched. They were just about equal in terms of physical strength and speed, with the medic-in-training having a slight advantage in the former due to his greater mass, while the blonde part-demon held a slight advantage in the latter. Both also had a high pain tolerance and an accelerated rate of healing.

By far the greatest difference between them in terms of ability was in chakra and stamina. Naruto could keep going for hours and had chakra stores that could rival most jonins but nearly no control over said chakra (the one downside to having extra-potent chakra). Kabuto, on the other hand, while having above average chakra stores and stamina for his age, was nowhere near the blonde's level, but at the same time had the level of chakra control one would expect of a med-nin.

In this particular instance, however, Naruto had an idea that would put him at a distinct advantage. _"Kaa-san, please don't give me advice during the match. I wanna do this on my own."_

"_Of course, Naruto. Good luck, son."_ 'that's my Naru-chan' the redhead thought privately.

The seats surrounding the small arena were filled with students and quite a few instructors. Hana had no idea how, but apparently, news of the match had spread through the Academy at a ridiculous rate, as they had been in class less than five minutes ago, yet now everyone in the building was somehow here. The Inuzuka (and her companions, for that matter) was conflicted and couldn't decide who to cheer for. Those were her two best friends down there, and giving her support to one of them meant denying it from the other.

Matsumoto-sensei, who was acting as referee, stepped up. "This match, between Uzumaki Naruto and Yakushi Kabuto, is to decide who gets the honor of the title "Rookie of the Year." Anything is allowed short of killing, and the match goes until there is a clear winner or I see fit to end it. Fighters ready?" Both boys nodded, blue and black eyes not leaving each other for an instant. "Begin!"

Hana watched as her friends leapt away from each other, both forming handseals as they did so. She knew from their many spars together that Kabuto was activating his chakra scalpels, as he used the thing whenever he was allowed to. The small blonde, however, was going through a much longer series of handseals for a very different jutsu, one only the Inuzuka heiress recognized. She couldn't help but smile at his ingenuity.

"**Penki Seisei no Jutsu**" (paint creation technique)

While a majority of the spectators looked at Naruto as though he were crazy, a large amount of orange paint coalesced into existence directly above his head. As it puored down over him, the purpose of his seemingly-useless jutsu became extremely obvious. Now, his entire head was as orange as his outfit, and what little patches of other colors were previously on that were now gone as well. Normally, of course, covering oneself in bright orange paint is not a good thing to do during the middle of a fight, but when everything else in the area is already the exact same shade of orange, it makes one nearly invisible.

For a fraction of a second, Hana wondered if the former blonde had planned all of this, including their prank the day before ahead of time, but dismissed the thought. Uzumaki Naruto didn't plan; he just read situations in an instant and came up with crazy off-the-wall ideas that always worked, rgardless of the fact that they really shouldn't. She ad known him long enough to learn that.

And now, straight away, Kabuto was forced onto the defensive, having to crouch down low to the ground due to his opponent's significantly smaller size. He could barely make out his solid orange foe smirking at him before settling into a stance for his favorite taijutsu style. Interestingly enough, but not all too surprising when one thought about it, Naruto's preferred style was the Kitsune style, which focused on constant motion and feint attacks to unbalance the opponent before striking a decisive hit. In other words, it was the perfect choice for the current situation, as seeing his friend was hard enough already.

Then the blonde was off, running towards him in a speedy zigzag manner. Instinct told him to move, and the glasses-wearing ten-year-old threw himself back and to the left just in time to avoid a chakra-infused kick aimed for his torso that would have likely ended the match right then and there. Hands coated in chakra darted out, in hopes of striking said limb and possibly severing a tendon, but he missed.

For his part, Naruto was a bit nervous. There were a lot of people present, most of whom either hated him or were related to people that hated him. He had no doubt that all the students would be telling their parents about this match when they arrived home, and he wanted as little as possible known about what he was capable of. Secrecy and deception, as Kaa-san had pounded into his head, were two of the most useful tools a ninja had. The more knowledge of his abilities spread, the greater chance future enemies would know those abilities. In fact, the only two people to know the full extent of what he could do were himself and Kaa-san.

The part-demon boy had no intention of showing the crowd most of his jutsu, and if Kabuto realized that, he would be able to take the offensive with his own ninjutsu, which he had no similar qualms about using. So the blonde wanted to finish this match fast, before his opponent had a chance to orient himself and get accustomed to following orange on orange.

Finishing the missed spin-kick he had just attempted, Naruto, instead of using his current momentum to turn a further 180 degrees and face the other boy again, used his left leg to launch himself at his foe backwards, throwing his upper body back and passing just underneath the still-outstretched arms.

For a brief moment, the blonde was traveling upside-down through the air, parallel to the ground. He tilted his head back so he could actually see his opponent, who had apparently been so caught off guard by his maneuver that he had yet to react, leaving a perfect opening. Adding chakra to the blow wouldn't really be necessary, considering the target, but Kabuto had giving him that arrogant, superior smirk of his all day, and it pissed him off a bit. So, pumping as much chakra into his right arm and fist as he had time for, Naruto punched the older boy directly between his legs.

The last time anyone had heard Yakushi Kabuto scream like that had been when he was three and thought he saw a monster in his closet. He promptly fainted from both pain and embarrassment.

Several seconds of utter silence followed, then Matsumoto-sensei announced his victory in a slightly shoked voice, followed immediately by a loud congratulations from Hana-chan and her partners. That started off the half-hearted cheers (as only half the audience was cheering, while the other half was still too busy wincing in sympathetic pain for Kabuto. Maybe that had been a bit too much; he'd apologize tomorrow.

"_Good work son. Using your enemy's weakness to your advantage is always a sound strategy."_ He glowed at the praise. _"Although, come to think of it, if you really want to take that pain training of yours seriously, we're going to have to add crotch hits."_ Naruto went pale and stiff. Fortunately, no one noticed, because he was still orange.


	4. team prodigy

**chapter 4**

**team prodigy**

It was the day after the genin exam, and Naruto and his classmates were at the Academy waiting to be sorted into teams. The small blonde was, for once, quiet, as he impatiently sat through Matsumoto-sensei's speech on how they were all ninjas now and needed to reflect that fact in their behavior.

Unlike usual, the youngest ninja in Konoha's history was not seated between his two friends. Instead, Hana was in between the blonde and the med-nin, as the older boy had not yet forgiven him for yesterday's match. In fact, Kabuto had not even so much as looked at or spoken to him all day, something Naruto found himself very worried about. It couldn't have hurt _that_ badly, right?

"_Don't worry. He's probably just upset that he lost so spectacularly. Kabuto-kun will be back to normal in a day or so."_ While Kushina couldn't hear her son's thoughts directly, she could still sense his worry.

"_Thanks, Kaa-san."_ One of Hana's puppies chose that moment to interrupt the silent conversation with a wet, slobbery kiss to the blonde's face. "Bleh! Hana-chan, teach your dogs not to do that!"

"Aw, but you look so cute covered in dog slobber, Naru-kun." She gave a mischievous grin before giving a silent order to all three dogs, who immediately leapt at the four-year-old and started licking every part of him they could find.

"Ahh! Get them off me!" Naruto shouted in mock terror, while making half-hearted attempts to dislodge the furrballs.

"AHEM!" Matsumoto-sensei was clearly not pleased with the disturbance. "_As_ I was saying, a ninja must be responsible and level-headed at all times, as both your own lives and quite possibly the lives of others depend..." Naruto tuned the man out again; Kaa-san had pounded all this into his head forever ago.

"I will now announce your teams, so listen closely."

"_Finally."_ the blonde thought with an audible sigh of relief.

"_I know what you mean. If your father was still alive, I'd tell him to dock that man's pay for wasting everyone's time," _Kushina responded, mentally shaking her head in exasperation.

Naruto and his mother only half paid attention to the team listings, listening for his name or the names of his friends. "Team 9: Uzumaki Naruto," he perked up, wanting to know who his teammates were, "Inuzuka Hana,"

"Yes!" The shout was simultaneous from both genin.

"And Yakushi Kabuto."

"WOOHOO!" Naruto jumped up onto the desk in front of him in excitement and performed an odd sort of victory dance. "Did you hear that, guys? We're all together! Yeah!"

"SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!!!" It seemed the blonde had pushed Matsumoto-sensei's patience a bit too much, as the man had resorted to using the dreaded big-head no jutsu, a ninjutsu known only to Academy teachers and created specifically for controlling rowdy students. Naruto happened to be particularly susceptible to it.

"Your jonin sensei will be Uchiha Itachi. Moving on, team 10 will..."

"_Ooh, Itachi-kun! I was his jonin sensei for several months before I had you."_ Kushina spoke up from inside her son's mind.

"_Really? Wait, so he went from genin to jonin in under five years?" _His mother had explained to him just how great the difference was between the lowest-ranking ninjas and the higher-level shinobi. To advance that far in such a short time was _not_ something just anyone could do.

"_Not too surprising, considering how much of a prodigy he is; he graduated the Academy about a year older than you," _the redhead said, her voice filled with pride at her son's accomplishment.

Naruto spent a brief moment pondering this new information and was barely able to keep his surprise from showing on his face. _"WHAT?! So he's the same age as Hana-chan and Kabuto?!"_

"_Hmm. Yep, he'd be about ten years old right now. Ah, here he comes now." _At this point, several people filed into the room. All but one of them were adults. _"Well one big advantage you'll have on missions is that opponents will underestimate your team, seeing as you're all under five feet tall."_

Were it not for the flat, serious expression on his face, and the forehead protector he was wearing, Uchiha Itachi would have looked like any other ten-year-old. "Team nine, follow me." He spoke in a monotone voice that somehow still managed to convey that the statement was an order, and despite being confused briefly, Naruto's teammates soon got up and followed their not-confused friend and young new sensei out of the room.

* * *

Itachi led the three new genin outside the academy and through the village to a quiet, peaceful clearing in one of the training grounds and directed them to sit on the grass.

"_Haha_" Kushina gave a quiet chuckle that, of course, went unheard by everyone but her son.

"_What's so funny, Kaa-san?_" Naruto asked.

The redhead stopped chucking after a moment. "_Oh, it's just that this is the same place I brought Tachi-kun and his teammates when they first became genin. I guess he's turning it into a tradition of some kind._"

"Well, first we should all get to know one another," the young jonin said, breaking the even younger orange-clad genin from his mental conversation with his mother. An awkward silence followed this statement, likely because it was spoken in that same lifeless monotone the Uchiha had used in the classroom.

"Um, sensei?" Hana asked, "do you think you could go first? I mean, Kabuto, Naru-kun and I already know each other pretty well, but the only thing we know about you is your name."

The only person present wearing glasses decided to add to his friend's request. "Also, it would let us know what sorts of things you expect us to tell you."

"Very well. My name is Uchiha Itachi. I am currently ten years old. I like training. I dislike the eletist attitude held by most of my clan. I love my little brother and this village. I hate anyone who would try to harm the things I love. I have no real hobbies, as almost all my time is taken up by training. My dream for the future is to become an extremely powerful shinobi so that I can always protect those I love."

As he spoke, everyone listening noticed as the young genius slipped out of his monotone and into an expressive, emotional voice. The three genins were glad to learn that their new sensei wasn't some sort of robot. The fox-woman, however, was relieved. The intelligent, passionate child she had trained, for however brief a time, was still there, just hidden. When she had first laid eyes on Itachi through her son and heard his dull, emotionless voice, she had feared that bright child had been lost to the harshness of ninja life and the extreme stress often placed on prodigies.

The young Uchiha seemed to freeze for a moment before recomposing himself into the stern, silent ninja he had been before starting his introduction. '_Tachi-kun, I will find out what happened to make you want to hide yourself like this, and I _will_ make it better, that's a promise._' Kushina thought to herself.

"Your turn." Itachi pointed at Kabuto.

The grey-haired boy pushed his glasses up on his nose before speaking. "My name is Yakushi Kabuto. I'm ten years old and like Naruto, most of the time, Hana, and studying with my father, who is the head of the Konoha medical department. I dislike Naruto when he's being annoying. I love learning new things about the human body and medicine. I mean, it's really just amazing how our bodies work, the way the circulatory system pumps blood through the arteries, capillaries, and veins, and the pulmonary sys-" At this point, he finally noticed the rather harsh glare his best friends had been giving him for a while.

"Sorry, I tend to get a bit carried away when talking about medicine. Anyway, I hate _being hit between the legs_," he stared pointedly at the short blonde, "and having to wear glasses all the time. As for hobbies, I often watch the doctors work in the hospital. My dream for the future is to become a medic nin equal to or surpassing Tsunade of the Sannin in skill."

"Very well. You next." The Uchiha turned towards Hana.

The only girl present had been lying on her back, relaxing and petting her dogs, but she sat up before speaking. "My name's Inuzuka Hana. I'm ten years old. I like spending time with Naru-kun and Kabuto, and don't like the jerks who are mean to Naru-kun cause he has a fox stuffed in his belly. I love my family, which of course includes these three little guys here," she gestured to the puppies laying on the ground in front of her. "I _hate_ cats. My only real hobby is exploring the forest around Konoha with my canine partners. Dreams for the future are to succeed my mom as clan head, open the first professional veterinary clinic in the village, and get my father to come back home."

"And finally your turn." Itachi looked at Naruto.

The blonde stood up before speaking, raising himself to his full height of three feet four inches. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm four and a half years old! I like lots of stuff, like training, pranks, and ramen! I really like the ramen from Ichiraku Ramen. I don't like the three minutes I have to wait for the water to boil for my ramen. I love Hana-chan, Kabuto, and all of Konoha, even the people who don't like me because of the fox. I hate whoever it was that caused the Kyuubi attack." The child continued on without pause, not even registering the looks of shock on the faces of two of the other three present that the attack over four years ago might have been caused by a person (Itachi of course was able to hide his surprise). "My hobbies are playing pranks, training, and doing stuff with Hana-chan and Kabuto. My dream is to become the kind of person my parents would be proud of and protect Konoha and get all its people to accept me as the greatest Hokage ever!"

Everyone took a moment to process Naruto's fairly loud declaration, then Itachi spoke again. "Now that we all know a little about each other, i will give you three a test to see if you really are ready to become genin of Konoha."

"Huh?" was the collective response from the novice ninjas.

"A test. You didn't really think that everyone who could make a bunshin would be allowed to become a ninja, did you? In fact, about two-thirds of the graduates usually fail and have to return to the Academy."

While Kabuto and Hana were worrying over the thought of another test, Naruto was shouting at his mom. "_Kaa-san! Why the hell didn't you warn me there would be another test?!_"

"_Two reasons,_" the redhead responded. "_One, this test is supposed to be a surprise, and knowing about it ahead of time would give you an unfair advantage. And two, you're adorable when you panic._"

"_Kaa-san!_" He gave the mental equivalent of a scowl.

A ringing sound drew the child's attention back to the physical world. Itachi was holding up a single silver bell on a string. "Your test," he said, "is to get this bell from me. The one who gets the bell passes, the other two fail."

The blonde immediately leapt to his feet and glared at the Uchiha heir. "WHAT?! What kind of nonsense is that?! Only one of us gets to be a ninja, just because we happened to get grouped together?! I'm not gonna turn on my two best friends at the say-so of some stupid robot! Change the rules or I won't join in!" The other two moved to stand behind him, adding their own defiant glares to Naruto's.

Itachi morphed his face into a displeased expression. "Is that it, then? You three would be willing to give up your ninja careers just for each other?"

The three genin didn't waver.

Kushina, who knew what was coming, started laughing in her mind.

"So be it." The jonin took out a kunai.

"If that is your decision," he let his chakra levels start to rise as he took a step forward. The friends braced themselves for an attack.

"You three..." Despite still speaking in monotone, Itachi somehow still managed to appear extremely threatening.

"Pass." The threatening aura vanished in an instant, leaving three with their eyes wide and mouths hanging open. Naruto looked especially ridiculous, as his mouth was extra-wide, forming an O shape nearly half the size of his head.

Itachi couldn't help it. He laughed. As did Kushina. Then Naruto started, then Hana, and finally Kabuto. The entirety of team nine spent the next ten minutes rolling around on the grass laughing uproariously at nothing whatsoever.


	5. an

author's note

I hate having to do this to all of my readers (especially since I took a break from my other story to start this one), but I am putting this story on hold indefinitely.

To be completely honest, I started this story simply because the idea would not leave me alone, and there were (and still are) some major decisions I had to make concerning the direction of my other story. Unfortunately, I have no idea of where this story is headed at the moment, and attempting to write without that would end in me spewing out pointless junk.

I do have another story idea in my head though, and unlike this one, it is fairly well-developed and planned out, so I'm not going to end up just leaving it randomly. I plan on having the first chapter up by Saturday at the latest.

On another note, since I currently have no intentions of continuing this story, it is up for adoption. PM me if interested.


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